food blogger meet-up hits Grand Rapids for a daylong tour of the city’s best in food and drink. The bloggers have a combined viewership of at least 1 million hits per month, said Liz Della Croce, who blogs about healthy eating at

. “In today’s day and age, blogs are a big avenue for food companies to get their message out.” Della Croce, who lives in Grand Rapids, organized the bloggerific city tour with Detroit area blogger Rachel Gurk, who blogs at

. The event gathers bloggers from cities like New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. The group will start with breakfast from the Silver Spork Food Truck at the Fulton Street Farmers Market, followed by demonstrations at Art of the Table, a private lunch at Bistro Bella Vita, a tour and tasting at Reserve Wine & Food, and a dinner at Six.One.Six in the J.W. Marriott Hotel. The focus of the event is Michigan-based products, said Della Croce. “It’s really an event to showcase Michigan food and beverages.” To that end, Gurk and Della Croce were able to swing enough sponsorships to line a grab bag with more than 50 Michigan products that each of the bloggers will in turn take home and continue to write about in the coming weeks as they review the samples.

Liz Della Croce

Some of those products include Beanilla vanilla beans, Better Made chips, Sanders chocolate, Sleeping Bear Farms honey mustard, Freestone pickles, Blue Ox Jerky, and Coffee Beanery coffee. Gurk and Della Croce, each West Michigan natives, chose Grand Rapids based on the city’s burgeoning food and hospitality scene. “It’s such a revitalized, growing city,” she said, referencing “the art and the access to local produce.” “So many restaurants are independently owned and focus on farm-to-plate,” she said. “Downtown is not a bunch of chain restaurants. It’s a foodie town.” It helps that the event is taking place during ArtPrize, she said. The group is also eager to stop by shops in the Uptown East Hills and Wealthy Street neighborhoods.

Rachel Gurk

“It all makes for a great city to get together in.” You can follow along with the bloggers individually at each of their respective blogs, (list

. If the event proves to be a hit, Della Croce suggested Traverse City would make a good city to host a second year event. “We want to see how things go, first.” “We didn’t exactly have a plan in place when we put this together,” she said. “When I first got involved, I thought we’d just all be meeting for dinner and talking about our blogs.” “The reason it got so big is the overwhelming support from all these Michigan companies. Those partnerships helped us bring in so many different people.”